Virtual Patient Reference Library
Antiretroviral Therapy
page 6
General Guidelines
Specific Guidelines
When to initiate
Which agents
Monitoring
Modifying
Adding new drugs
Lipodystrophy Syndrome

Table 1: Antiretroviral Drugs
Table 2: Factors Affecting Medication Adherence

last update February 2003
 Specific Guidelines:

 If a modified antiretroviral regimen is necessary,
 how should new drugs be chosen?
If the regimen is being changed because of development of viral resistance, an entirely new combination that does not share cross-resistance with current drugs is recommended. A careful prior antiretroviral drug history is important in selecting new agents, and HIV genotypic or phenotypic testing is also useful in this setting.

The genotype test provides a genetic "blueprint" of the predominant viral strain, and the phenotype test is a drug-sensitivity profile. Both tests show medications to which the virus is resistant, but they may be of limited use in predicting which ones will be effective. If the regimen is being modified because of toxicity to one drug, a single agent may be substituted for it.